


the substance of things unseen

by memorysdaughter



Series: got your heart in a headlock [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Character, Blindness, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Illnesses, Pastries, Refugees, Tattoos, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 22:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19160581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: "Of all the decisions that got made for me by someone else, she's the very best."Beau's life becomes turned upside down when Fjord and Jester volunteer to take in a refugee from the war in Xhorhas.





	the substance of things unseen

**Author's Note:**

> Started for CritRole Femslash Week, but obviously not finished in time.
> 
> Cross-posted to Tumblr.
> 
> In vignette #5, Yasha sings "After the Storm" by Mumford & Sons.

_distant places_

Beau comes home from her workout one day to find Fjord and Jester in their kitchen with a pile of brochures from the Moondrop & Fletchling Refugee Resettlement Agency.  Somehow while she was gone for three hours they’ve decided - without her - to take in a refugee from the war in Xhorhas.

“Beau, it’s going to be _so_ rewarding,” Jester tells her earnestly. “Mr. Tealeaf told us that we’ll be really helping someone, and _everyone_ wants to help someone, right?”

There really isn’t much Beau can say about that without sounding like a dick, so instead she says, “When are they coming?”

“She’ll be here tomorrow,” Fjord answers. “So make sure you look presentable.  Not like today, okay? You kinda stink.”

Beau punches him in the shoulder.

And then goes to take a shower, because Fjord’s right, she does stink.

 

Mr. Tealeaf turns out to be the most flamboyant sort of likable asshole Beau’s ever met when he shows up the next day at their house, and if he was the only one who showed up Beau’s pretty sure she’d focus more on his eccentricities, but he leads a tall, beautiful woman into their living room and Beau’s attention immediately swings towards their new house guest.

“This is Yasha,” Mr. Tealeaf says, his hand on Yasha’s arm as they stand in the hallway. “Yasha, you’ll be staying here with three people - Jester, Fjord, and Beau.  I told you a little about them yesterday. Jester’s a great baker.”

“Hello,” Yasha says.

“We’re going to be great friends, Yasha!” Jester declares, and she bounds forward, clasping Yasha’s hands in hers.

Beau’s pretty sure she’s the only one who sees Yasha flinch away from the touch, as though she wasn’t expecting it.  

“That’s Jester,” Fjord says, striding forward to put a hand on Yasha’s shoulder. “I’m Fjord.”

Beau tilts her head, watching Yasha’s facial expression.  As Fjord steps up she doesn’t turn her head to look at him, and her heterochromic eyes blink slowly.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Yasha says, and Beau takes in the Xhorhasian accent while still trying to figure out the odd sensation at the back of her skull.  Something about Yasha isn’t adding up.

“Now, I’ve prepared the paperwork for you to look over,” Mr. Tealeaf says. “Is there somewhere we could…?”

“Of course!  Right this way!” Jester says. “I made doughnuts for everyone!  Fjord, will you get the coffee?”

“Sure will,” Fjord says, and turns to go back to the kitchen.

He lets go of Yasha’s shoulder and Beau sees it - the sudden look of someone set adrift.

It slams into Beau’s chest like a palm strike from Dairon.  _She’s blind._

“Hi, Yasha,” Beau says as the others flow around her towards the kitchen. “I’m Beau.”

Some of the panic in Yasha’s face abates. “Hello, Beau,” she says softly.

“Would you like to take my elbow?  I can lead you into the kitchen.”

“That would be nice.”

Beau hesitantly approaches Yasha, footsteps creaking across the wooden floor.  She hesitates for just a second too long, apparently, because Yasha smiles for the first time since her arrival. “I do not bite, Beau.”

The smile nearly takes Beau’s breath away; she finds it hard to come up with her next words. “Me neither.  Unless I’m asked.”

A red hot surge of embarrassment sweeps over her and to cover she takes Yasha’s hand in hers.  Yasha’s fingers are slim and fine and cool, and Beau places them carefully on her elbow. “Um, is this all right?”

“Yes.”

“Welcome to Nicodranas, by the way,” Beau says as she leads Yasha down the hallway to the kitchen.

Yasha stays quiet for a moment.  When she speaks, her voice is quiet and a little sad. “Thank you.  It is… very far away.”

“From where you were?  Like, geographically?”

“From everything,” Yasha says, and then they’re in the kitchen and Mr. Tealeaf is talking paperwork and Jester’s offering doughnuts and Fjord’s pouring coffee and Yasha says no more.

 

* * *

 

 _first_ _kiss_

The original six weeks of Yasha’s stay turns into two months, then six, then a year.  She spends chunks of time away from them, though, at the Storm Lord Rehabilitation Center, learning to read Braille and how to get around with a cane, something there wasn’t time to do in Xhorhas before she was evacuated.  When she’s with them, she’s polite, if reserved, and tries to do as much as she can for herself.

Beau finds herself spending more and more time at home.  It’s not just because Yasha’s beautiful - which she is - and strong - which she also is - and smells really good - which she does - but something else entirely.  Watching Yasha adapt to the world around her, both in a new geographic location and while her senses reorient themselves, is like watching a flower reach for the sun, opening fragile petals and turning its face to the light.  Every day it seems there’s something new Beau loves about Yasha.

At first it’s her eyes.  Yes, they’re sightless, but they’re both individually beautiful.  Purple and greenish-blue. Sometimes it seems like Yasha’s looking at Beau, turning her beautiful eyes towards Beau’s face, and even though she knows it’s not true, it still feels nice.

Then it’s her voice.  Soft, hesitant, a little gravelly.  All of her words are weighted and measured; she carefully calculates what she wants to say before she says it, which, after some time spent living with Jester, Beau comes to appreciate.  She loves asking Yasha questions, even though she has to space them out so as not to overwhelm Yasha, because no one else in Beau’s life spends as much time considering answers as Yasha does.  Beau takes everything Yasha tells her and savors it.

After that it’s her body, which Beau knows sounds almost lecherous, but she doesn’t mean it in that way.  Yasha is stronger than anyone Beau knows, except maybe Jester, but mostly she moves as though she’s spun glass.  Her long-fingered hands move across things slowly, figuring out what they are, her brow furrowing gently as she processes the Brailled labels on the boxes in the cabinet.  Her hair sways with little braids.  Her footsteps are confident, more confident than they were when she first arrived, but always placed with care.

It’s that confidence and care that inspires Beau to say one morning, apropos of nothing much else, “You wanna work out with me today?”

She flushes after she says it, her offer sounding puny in the still kitchen.  Like most of her interactions with Yasha, she somehow feels like she’s a fumbling teenage girl.  She’s pretty sure Yasha can tell how flustered she gets, and she’s also pretty sure Yasha thinks it’s hilarious.

“Oh, I don’t know, Beau,” Jester says, flipping a funfetti pancake. “You do some pretty hardcore stuff.”

“I mean, I could slow down for today,” Beau says.  She could. She _would,_ for Yasha.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Jester tells Yasha. “Beau’s a workout freak.”

Beau glares at Jester, who’s doing the exact reverse of “being a wingman.”

“I mean…” Jester tries to recover. “You can do whatever you want, Yasha.”

Yasha considers this, her fingers tapping the tabletop.

“Don’t worry about it, Yasha,” Beau says. “I’ll just -”

“I’d like to go,” Yasha says, interrupting Beau.

“Really?” Beau squeaks.

Yasha nods solemnly, and then she smiles at Beau. “I’d like to spend time with you, Beau.”

Beau sticks her tongue out at Jester and triumphantly mouths _So there._

 

At the workout studio Beau somehow gets Yasha down to her favorite training room without Dairon seeing them, and for the first fifteen minutes they go through some basic stretches.  Yasha doesn’t say anything, but watching her, Beau realizes that at some point in her life, Yasha was fairly athletic. Maybe not in the same way Beau is, but to be fair, _nobody_ works out like Beau does, except maybe Dairon.

“You’re good at this,” she tells Yasha as they finish a round of pushups.

“It’s coming back to me,” Yasha says. “What else do you do?”

So Beau starts leading her through the most basic of the _katas_ , trying her best to reposition Yasha’s limbs while describing what each arm and leg _should_ be doing, but it just turns out to be frustrating.  She sighs. “There’s got to be an easier way to do this.”

“That pose you just told me about… stand in it for a minute.”

“What?”

“Just…” Yasha shakes her head. “Just try, okay?”

Beau shrugs and assumes the fourth stance of the _kata,_ looking at the far wall and trying to let out all of her tension.  She closes her eyes and just listens to the room.

After a few seconds she hears Yasha take a step towards her, then another, until she can hear Yasha’s breathing.  Beau forces out her rising anxiety and continues to wait. Yasha murmurs, “Beau?”

“Hmm?”

“Okay.” Yasha’s hands come down on Beau’s arm, and immediately her fingers slide to Beau’s shoulder and to her fingers, scanning the entire position.  Beau keeps her eyes closed, strange heat flickering up her spine.

Yasha’s fingers move to Beau’s other shoulder, rising up her neck to check the position of her head, streaming like water down to her other hand and wrist. “I see,” Yasha says solemnly.

“What?” Beau whispers, entirely too turned on for this.

“None of this makes sense to me,” Yasha says.

Beau smiles and opens her eyes.  Yasha stands directly in front of her, fingertips still lingering on Beau’s wrist.

“I just know that I enjoy being here with you, Beau,” Yasha goes on.

“This gym specifically, or -” Beau starts.

Yasha cuts her off, leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss to Beau’s cheek. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

_moonlight_

Yasha’s been with them a year and a half when she gets sick for the first time.  She doesn’t come down for breakfast one morning and when Beau goes to look for her, she finds Yasha laying in bed, eyes open and glassy, breathing raspy.

“What’s wrong?” Beau asks dumbly, as though she can’t recognize the obvious signs of illness.

“I don’t… know,” Yasha wheezes. “I tried…”

She breaks into deep coughs, low and rib-shaking.  Beau darts across the room and helps Yasha into a sitting position.  It doesn’t seem to help much; Yasha continues to cough, desperately sucking in air between each spasm.  Beau props her up, feeling the slick sweat of fever on Yasha’s skin. “It’s okay,” she whispers helplessly. “It’s okay, Yash, just breathe.”

After what seems like far too long, Yasha catches her breath and sags forward against Beau’s arms. “I’m… sorry,” she pants.

“Sorry?” Beau’s definitely startled by that one. “For what?”

Yasha raises her head. “I’m… I’m sick,” she says, almost nervously.

“People get sick, Yash,” Beau says. “It’s okay.  I’m going to get Jes up here - she’s got some medical training - and if she can’t help you, we’ll get a real doctor in here.”

“You don’t have to,” Yasha says.

“Don’t have to help you feel better?  What, am I just going to let one of my best friends stay sick when we’ve got the ability to make her, you know, _not_ sick?”

Yasha’s brow furrows and her eyes swim, looking not at Beau but somewhere off in space. “Is that true?”

“That we can make you not sick?”

“No, that I’m…” She pauses to cough again, her breath catching in her chest. “... one of your best… friends?”

“Damn right you are,” Beau says.  She squeezes Yasha’s hand. “I’m going to leave for just a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” Yasha murmurs.

“But I’ll be right back.” Impulsively Beau leans in and kisses Yasha on the cheek.

That, at least, gets a small smile, and Beau will take it, even though Yasha’s cheek is fever-damp like her arms.

 

Dr. Trickfoot is one of the only doctors in the area who still makes house calls, and she comes to see Yasha within an hour.  It’s amusing to Beau, watching the tiny white-haired doctor examine the nearly six-foot Yasha, who, seated, is still taller than Dr. Trickfoot.  (Fjord brings up the kitchen step-stool on a hunch it might help. He is not wrong.)

Beau stays in the room throughout the examination, gently holding Yasha’s left hand.  Something changed in Yasha when they told her a doctor was coming, some sort of nearly-imperceptible nervousness showing up in her body position.  Even now Beau can feel Yasha trembling faintly; Yasha’s thumb flickers over Beau’s wrist as she tries to soothe herself.

“Dr. Trickfoot’s the best,” she whispers to Yasha as the doctor listens to Yasha’s chest. “I know you can’t see her, but she’s like an angel.  Very soothing.”

“Thank you, Beauregard,” Dr. Trickfoot says, a tinge of amusement in her voice as she leans back from Yasha. “Ms. Nydoorin, I believe you have pneumonia.  Your fever is quite high, and I can hear fluid in your lungs. Beau told me you were having trouble breathing earlier, and doing a bit of coughing. Did your coughing bring anything up?”

Yasha nods.

“That’s good.  It’s good to break up the mucus in there, get things moving.” Dr. Trickfoot turns back to her bag of supplies. “I’m going to write some prescriptions for you, including one for a medicated mist machine to clear out your lungs.  If you don’t start feeling better in a few days, we’ll try some other things.”

Yasha’s trembling gets a bit more pronounced, and she turns her head towards Beau, who sees tears filling her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Beau asks gently.

“I don’t… I don’t want her… to send me away.”

“What?”

Yasha clenches down on Beau’s hand. “When you’re sick… they send you away.”

Her breathing turns into wheezing as she starts crying. “I don’t want to go away.  I like it here.”

“Nobody’s going to send you away,” Beau says fiercely, and she wraps her arms around Yasha.  Yasha sobs into Beau’s shoulder, and Beau rocks them back and forth. “Nobody’s taking you anywhere.  Anybody who tries is gonna have to get through me.”

Dr. Trickfoot looks over at them, sudden realization coming over her expression. “Beauregard,” she says softly.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve heard from some of my colleagues that in the refugee camps in Xhorhas, the administrators were in the habit of sending sick or injured refugees to other locations, and I don’t think many of them survived.  Yasha is extremely lucky that she was evacuated, considering that she was blinded.”

 _Oh._  It’s another palm-strike to Beau’s chest. “Yash, listen, you’re safe here.  This is your home now. You belong here. Nobody’s going to evict you or take you away.  You’re here with me and Jes and Fjord, and we fight for our own.”

Yasha’s coughing, her sobs turning into choking gasps, and Beau wishes there was something more she could do to make any of this better.  Instead she just hugs Yasha to her, and kisses her cheek, and strokes her hair, and thinks how terribly unfair the world is.

 

Fjord goes out to the pharmacy after he gets home from work, and Jester convinces Yasha to swallow the pills and syrups Dr. Trickfoot prescribed, and Beau reads the instructions on the mist machine and sets it up on Yasha’s bedside table, gently helping Yasha slip the mask over her head before turning it on.

They lay there in the dark, fingers intertwined, Yasha’s thumb moving slowly over the inside of Beau’s wrist, the pulsing of the machine the only sound in the room as Yasha breathes in the medicine.  Beau turns her head to watch Yasha’s chest rise and fall, moonlight streaming through the window and dappling Yasha’s hair. “Yasha,” she whispers.

“Hmm?”

“I want to ask you a question, but I don’t know if it would be rude or not.”

Yasha’s voice is muffled by the mask, but Beau still hears amusement in it when she answers, “Has that ever stopped you before, Beau?”

Beau flushes. “I just… can you see _anything?”_

Yasha stills, and Beau’s positive she asked the wrong thing.  Then Yasha says, “Sometimes I think I can. Light and dark, maybe.  They say at Storm Lord that’s what most people can see.”

She adjusts the mask over her face. “But I don’t think that’s true.  I don’t think I see anything.”

Beau hears a rasp in Yasha’s chest and moves to prop up the pillows under Yasha’s head. “Okay.”

Neither of them speaks for a few minutes, and eventually the machine beeps, letting them know it’s finished dispensing medication.  Beau slides off the bed and turns it off, carefully removing the mask from Yasha’s face. In the pale beams of moonlight falling through the window she watches Yasha eyes flicker briefly, then close again.  The night feels suddenly soft and comfortable around them, and Beau climbs back into bed to hold Yasha’s hand again.

“I’m yours,” Yasha whispers, when Beau thinks she’s fallen asleep.

“You are,” Beau answers gently, playing back the conversation from earlier that afternoon.  _We fight for our own._

“Good,” Yasha says contentedly, and then she says no more.

 

* * *

 

_alternate universe_

“I want you to come to Storm Lord with me today.”

Beau turns around.  Yasha stands at the kitchen door, holding her long white cane in her hand, sunglasses pushing up her hair. “What?”

Yasha flushes. “Um, if you want to.  It’s just… they’re having a friends-and-family day, and you’re…”

She bites her lip.

“I’m both,” Beau declares. “Heck, yes, I’ll go with you.”

She looks down at herself - gross workout clothes, toast crumbs all over her top, and says, “How fast do we have to get there?”

“Well, I usually take the bus, so I leave in about five minutes, but…”

“We’ll drive today,” Beau decides. “Give me just a few minutes to slip into something a little more… presentable.  What’s the dress code?”

Yasha shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Beau brushes the toast crumbs into the sink and brushes past Yasha, heading for her bedroom.

“Beau?” Yasha calls after her softly.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you choose, I’m sure it’ll look beautiful.”

Beau grins, blushing fiercely, glad Yasha can’t see her.  Nobody else compliments her like Yasha does, and it’s a strange feeling - but she _loves_ it.

 

The Storm Lord Rehabilitation Center is located on a sprawl of land outside the city, a beautiful complex for all kinds of people learning to live with disabilities.  Beau pulls into a well-maintained parking lot and looks over at a large lawn close nearby, where several tents are set up and people are milling about. “This thing looks like a big deal,” she says.

In the passenger seat, Yasha smiles sheepishly.

“Why didn’t you ask Jester and Fjord to come too?”

“I didn’t… I didn’t want them to have to take time out of their lives,” Yasha says.

“Yash.  You’re ours.  They would have been here too.” Beau squeezes Yasha’s arm.

“Okay,” Yasha whispers.

Beau offers Yasha her elbow, which Yasha takes, and they set off across the expanse of lawn towards the gathering.  They make it about ten feet before a loud voice hollers: “Yasha!  Hey, guys, Yasha’s here!”

Yasha grins and ducks her head a little, her fingers on Beau’s elbow tensing slightly. “Now it starts.”

“What’s this?  You have a fan club?”

“Maybe.”

A short, stout woman with close-cropped brown hair makes her way over to them.  She’s extremely muscular, a huge smile on her round face. Her expression is so obviously delighted and her bearing is so joyful and purposeful that it takes Beau a few beats to realize she’s striding towards them on two prosthetic legs.  She reaches Yasha and Beau and touches Yasha’s hand. “Hey, lady! About time you got here! Who’s this fine-looking tall drink of water?”

Yasha blushes - _actually blushes_ ; Beau is flummoxed and more in love - and says, “This is my friend Beau.”

“Beau, eh?  Nice to meet you, Beau.  I’m Keg.” Keg leans forward and shakes Beau’s hand.  Her grip is extremely firm. “Yasha, do you want me to tell you about the different tents?”

“Sure,” Yasha says.

“Here, take my elbow,” Keg says, and then stops, looking back at Beau. “Is that all right?”

“Sure, of course,” Beau says, although inside she feels a little adrift, out of her element.  Clearly Keg and Yasha have some sort of a relationship, and she’s outside of that duo. At home, that’s _their_ universe, hers and Yasha’s and Jester’s and Fjord’s, and this - this is an alternate universe, where Yasha’s in charge, where Yasha knows all the steps to all of the dances and Beau’s left stumbling behind.

“Come on, Beau,” Yasha says softly, a smile on her face. “I want you to meet everyone.”

And she reaches out with her other hand in the air, waiting for Beau’s gentle touch, wordlessly confident that it’s coming.

And because Yasha is Beau’s, but also because Beau is Yasha’s, Beau takes her hand, and moves boldly forward into that swiftly tilting alternate universe.

 

The afternoon is a gorgeous one, sunny and warm.  Beau eats cotton candy and drinks lemonade, plays adapted carnival games (she wins a spiral-bound book called “Learning to Read Braille”), and meets Yasha’s classmates from the center, all of them Yasha’s fans, who seem to adore her.  It’s obvious that she’s made an impact on the Storm Lord community in her short amount of time there.

Near the end of the day, when Beau’s sitting on a picnic table watching Yasha hold court among a group of blind students, Keg finds her and hops up on the picnic table next to her. “She’s pretty fantastic,” Keg says, indicating Yasha with a jerk of her chin.

“Mm-hmm.”

“And God, does she love you.”

At that Beau jerks upright, turning towards Keg. “What?”

“You’re all she talks about when she’s here,” Keg says. “I mean, okay, she talks about your other two housemates sometimes, but she’s always saying _Beau says_ or _Beau showed me_ or _Beau did this._  Some of us got a complex, trying to live up to you.”

Keg leans back on her hands. “It was weird at first, ‘cause she didn’t talk much, and she was so scared.  We’re just like a big weird goofy family here, and so we tried to make things better for her as much as we could… but it was after her time spent with you that we started to see the most change.  She was more relaxed, she smiled more, she started to trust us.”

Tears are in Beau’s eyes, but she’ll be damned if she lets Keg see.

“I can’t imagine what things have been like for her,” Keg goes on. “Being blinded in Xhorhas during a war, somehow getting lucky enough to get evacuated, and then ending up here.  Things could have gone super wrong for her, and yet somehow she ended up with you and your friends.”

“We really…” Beau tries to speak but her voice is clogged with emotion.  She clears her throat and tries again. “We really like having her with us.  I mean, I was kinda wary about doing something like this at first, ‘cause Jester and Fjord sorta made the decision without me, but…”

She looks over at Yasha, seated next to a small man with dark round sunglasses, both of them beaming as another woman speaks, and feels nothing but joy and pride. “... but it turns out that of all the decisions that got made for me by someone else, she’s the very best.”

“You should tell her how you feel,” Keg says.  She pushes herself off the picnic bench and stands up.

“I mean…” Beau says.

“You should,” Keg repeats. “Sometimes if you’re lucky enough to find someone who matters, you get one chance to tell them, and if you miss it, it’ll never show up again.”

She’s clearly speaking from experience, her face now pulled tight with emotion, and Beau can’t even imagine all of the stories pent up at the center, lives changed or altered, so many ends and beginnings in the same place.  Softly she says, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good,” Keg says. “‘Cause she might spend time with us, but she’s almost ready to live in your world full-time, and I don’t want her getting lonely.”

 

On the ride home Yasha’s clearly tired, leaning her head against the window, fingers gently tapping her cane, but there’s a smile on her face. “Thank you for coming with me,” she tells Beau.

“There’s nowhere else in this universe or any other where I’d want to be,” Beau says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sometimes all the stars align,” Beau says, “and you find out you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

She reaches over and squeezes Yasha’s hand, and feels a flame of delight spark in her heart when Yasha squeezes back, and continues to hang on.

 

* * *

 

_bad weather_

Beau wakes with a sickening slosh in her stomach and pain spearing her head, seemingly matching the thunderstorm raging outside.   _So it’s going to be one of_ _those_ _days,_ she thinks angrily in the direction of her migraine.  Luckily it’s her day off, so she doesn’t have to worry about stumbling through an excuse to Dairon; somehow that doesn’t make it any better.

She tries to stand up, to head for the bathroom where she keeps her migraine meds, but her legs are like jelly.  There’s a breathtaking few seconds where she thinks she’ll stay upright, but her knees decide otherwise and she crashes down in a heap.  The pain in her head ensnares her body and she pounds her fist against the floor, frustrated and enraged. Tears form in her eyes and she doesn’t even try to wipe them away.

Beau lays there, in too much pain to move, for a seemingly unending series of minutes.  She loses track of how long it’s been, loses track of everything around her, and only drops back into focus when she hears soft _ticks_ coming from the hallway.

“Beau?”

_Oh, shit, Yasha._

“Beau, I heard a loud noise.  Are you all right?”

Beau tries to get her mouth to work. “Yasha…?”

“I’m going to come in now,” Yasha says.

The door opens.  Beau turns her head and sees Yasha in the doorway. “Yasha… I’m on the floor.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

Yasha takes a few steps forward, gently feeling the area with her cane, before she taps Beau’s shin.  With that, Yasha lays her cane aside and gets down on the floor, reaching out for Beau. “Can I help?”

Beau looks up into the somewhat-blurry face of Yasha, pain still wrapped around her head. “I need… medicine.”

“Okay.  I can get on the bus and go to the pharmacy -”

Despite her pounding head, Beau has to smile at Yasha’s immediate desire to help. “It’s a bit closer.  In the bathroom. In the cabinet over the towel rack.”

She closes her eyes and tries to think about where she last saw it, knowing she’ll have to give Yasha very precise directions. “Second shelf, left-hand side.  It’s in a box.”

Yasha nods and Beau feels her get to her feet and move towards the bathroom.  Beau brings her knees into her chest and grits her teeth against nausea. She opens her eyes and the room around her flows into gray and black shadows; she hazily wonders if that’s what Yasha sees.

“Yasha?”

“Hmm?” comes the voice, distantly, from the bathroom.

“I just…” But words are too heavy and Beau can’t keep them all straight.  She slides out of the world, maybe just for a moment.

Then there are fingers on hers, cool slim ones, and a hand on her forehead.  Beau tries to open her eyes.

“Beau, I am worried about you,” Yasha says, sounding very faraway. “Tell me what to do.”

The fingers are replaced by the feeling of the medicine box in her hand, and that pulls Beau back into the room.  She grits her teeth and flicks the box open, tipping the contents into her hand; her body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.  Her fingers wrap around the top of the auto-injector and she pushes down on the top, hearing a _click,_ knowing it’s primed.

Beau brings her arm up as far as she can, the world tilting away from her as though spun on an axis of stardust, her lips wet as though the rain from outside has found its way indoors, and jams the syringe into her upper thigh.

She hears it clatter to the floor, and hears Yasha cry something out in what sounds like a foreign language, but she lets that stardust twirl her away.

 

A wave of nausea and sudden understanding washes over her and she comes up for air, gasping.  Arms are around her, holding her close, and a wrenching, heart-rending voice fills the air with a song in a language she doesn’t speak.  It wraps around the room in a velvet ribbon, twisting and embracing.

Beau tries to open her eyes and finds she can, looking up into Yasha’s drawn, blank-eyed face. “Yasha?” she mumbles.

“Beau?” Yasha replies hesitantly. “Are you alive?”

Beau smiles. “Yes.  Very much so.”

She tries to sit up and her body protests only a little.  Yasha lets her up, and as Beau leans back she can see tear tracks on Yasha’s cheeks. “Yash… were you crying?”

Yasha ducks her head, turning away from Beau.

Beau scoots close and gently touches Yasha’s face. “Hey.  I’m so sorry you had to see all that. Or, in your case… _not_ see all that.”

She’s expecting the joke to make Yasha at least crack a smile, and when it doesn’t Beau’s stomach twists. “Yasha.  Talk to me.”

“I thought you were dead.  And I held you, just like I held her...” Yasha whispers faintly.

Beau strokes Yasha’s face, and just waits.  Yasha bows her head, and after several long moments Beau hears her sobbing. “Oh, Yasha.”

She pulls Yasha in close, cradles her.  Yasha puts her head on Beau’s shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.

“I _held_ her!” Yasha bites out, her voice twisted and raw. “I _held_ her and she _died_ and…”

Beau’s frozen, unable to move or speak or do anything but hold Yasha.

“... and the bomb hit and her face was the last thing I saw,” Yasha wails. “Why didn’t I die, too, Beau?  Why didn’t I _fucking_ die with her?”

“I don’t know,” Beau gets out. “I don’t know, Yash.”

“Don’t be dead,” Yasha sobs. “Don’t be dead.”

“I’m not dead.  I was just sick.  I’m right here. I’m right here with you.” Beau tightens her embrace around Yasha, and they rock on the floor, back and forth, back and forth, in a rhythm entirely their own. “I’m right here.”

The morning wanes around them and Yasha’s sobs slow, then stop.  Beau strokes Yasha’s hair, just waiting for the moment that tells her it’s the right time to let go.

Eventually Yasha speaks again. “I’m sorry.”

“What?  No, you have nothing to be sorry for. _I’m_ sorry for not explaining what was happening to me.”

Yasha sighs and relaxes, settling down further into Beau’s embrace, her breath warm on Beau’s neck.

“How can I help?” Beau asks quietly.

“I don’t know if you can.”

“I can always try.”

Yasha reaches up and feels for one of Beau’s hands, finds it, and makes it stroke her hair once more.

“Okay.  I can do that.” Beau continues to stroke. “That song you were singing… what was it?”

Yasha freezes, and for a moment Beau thinks she’s done the wrong thing.  Then Yasha says, “It’s a song from… from home.”

“Can you translate it for me?”

“I can try.” Yasha considers this. _“I won’t die and be left there, well I guess I’ll just go home, oh God knows where, because death is just so full and man is so small, well I’m scared of what’s behind and what’s before.”_

It breaks Beau’s heart. “I’m so sorry.”

“We really have to stop apologizing to each other,” Yasha says gently.

“Okay.  Okay. I think I can do that.”

Yasha sits up, and wipes her eyes.  Beau leans back, giving her space.

“Yash?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you tell me about her?  Someday?”

Yasha considers this, her eyes turning towards the window, though Beau isn’t sure if it’s purposeful or not. “Someday,” she agrees.

Beau smiles, and gently kisses Yasha on the forehead. “I’ll be here.”

 

* * *

 

_baking_

“Surprise!” everyone yells as the door opens, and Yasha stands there, cane in hand, looking shocked.

“What?” she asks, a grin spreading across her face. “What’s happening?”

Fjord bounds forward and puts a party hat in her hand. “Happy anniversary, Yasha.”

“Anniversary?”

Fjord guides the party hat to her head, helping her secure it under her chin. “It’s been two years since you first came to us, so we invited all sorts of folks to help celebrate.”

“Does it make us bad people, having a surprise party for a blind woman?” Jester asks rhetorically, getting up from behind the couch.

“Nope,” Keg opines. “We do it all the time at Storm Lord.”

“We are kinda assholes, though,” Beau says.

“Maybe just you.” Keg winks and lifts her mug.

“I’ll get you a drink!” Fjord tells Yasha, who just continues to beam.

The party goes off without a hitch - Yasha spends time with every person they’d brought to celebrate her anniversary, and they all eat and drink and laugh and dance.  At the very end, Yasha ends up on the couch, alone, the party hat tilting slightly to one side, looking happy. Beau takes the opportunity to retrieve a small wrapped box from the garage and sit down next to Yasha.

“Hey.” Beau kisses her cheek.

“Hi, Beau,” Yasha says, and grins.

“I got you something,” Beau tells her.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know - that’s why it’s a gift.”

Beau puts the small box into Yasha’s lap.  Yasha’s fingers come up immediately and begin roaming over it. “What is it?”

“You have to open it to find out,” Beau says, grinning.

Yasha finds the taped edges and begins peeling away the paper.  Beau watches her, thinking of the box’s contents and her quest to find something that would mean more to Yasha than a cheap trinket.

There wasn’t a huge population of Xhorhassians in Nicodranas, but there were a few, if you knew where to look.  Keg knew where to look, apparently, because she was the one who helped Beau track down a Xhorhassian bakery, located on a back street in the center of the city.  The bakery was staffed by an adorable elderly Xhorhassian couple who immediately treated both Beau and Keg like granddaughters, stuffing them full of pastries and tea while pinching their cheeks.

 _“I’m looking for something special for someone I love,”_ Beau told them, seeing no need to mince words.

 _“Tell us about her,”_ the old woman said.

 _“She’s… everything,”_ Beau answered honestly. _“And I want to have something that will remind of her home.”_

With that the old man ran to the kitchen and returned with a book, thick and old, handwritten and filled with recipes.  He flipped it open to a well-used page and held it out to his wife, jabbering at her in a language Beau could only assume was Xhorhassian.

 _“He wants me to make you some jewels,”_ the old woman said, and she showed Beau and Keg tiny, intricate pastries that lived up to their namesake in sparkling rows.

Now Beau watches Yasha open the box with the four jewels cupped inside, and she finds she’s holding her breath.  A smell drifts up from the container, something sweet with hints of cherry and chocolate and lime and raspberry, and Yasha’s brow furrows. “Beau…”

“They’re _galadzhayot,”_ Beau says, knowing she can’t pronounce the word for shit.

“Oh,” Yasha gets out, sounding surprised and also as though someone’s punched her in the gut.

“And I know I didn’t say that right, but Keg found me some people from Xhorhas who made them for you,” Beau goes on, her voice now sounding slightly desperate. “I just wanted you to have them, because they were from home, and…”

Yasha gently reaches in and touches one of the pastries.  Some of the frosting comes off on her finger and she brings it up to her mouth, nearly unconsciously licking it off. “Oh.”

“Yasha, talk to me,” Beau says.

Yasha takes a deep, shuddery breath. “I’m ready… to tell you about her now.”

 

“Her name was Zuala,” Yasha says.  The room is still and dark around them; Jester and Fjord long ago having gone upstairs.  She and Beau are holding hands; Beau can feel Yasha trembling slightly. “And she was my wife.”

“Oh,” Beau says. “Oh, Yasha.”

“It’s okay,” Yasha says. “I want to say her name.  I want to talk about her. I haven’t told anybody about her since I came here, and it’s been _two whole years.”_

She shifts. “I almost told you about her when I was sick, because I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to be… I wanted to be buried with her.  But then I realized that wasn’t going to happen, because she was just _gone.”_

Beau nods, forgetting Yasha can’t see her.

“We met when we were teenagers,” Yasha goes on. “We were very different.  I was… quiet, and shy. And she was different - brassy, I think is the word you’d use.  She shone. And out of all the people in my village she could have chosen, the one she wanted was me.  I couldn’t understand it.”

She moves her finger to the pastry box and touches the jewels again, _one two three four,_ before she speaks again. “But where we lived… you didn’t get to choose who you married.  And the elders didn’t choose Zuala for me.”

“Oh no,” Beau murmurs, enraptured.

“So we ran away,” Yasha says. “We ran away together, and we were happy together.  But they found us. We always knew they would.”

She pauses, and Beau squeezes her hand.

“We were in prison when the bombs started falling,” Yasha goes on, her voice now distant. “We were… together until the end.  I loved her _so much,_ Beau.  She was _everything,_ and then she was gone.  And my sight was gone. And I just lay there in the mud, holding her, until some Empire soldiers found me.  They made me leave her. I know I should be grateful they saved me, but…”

Her voice breaks, and Beau pulls Yasha close to her, wrapping her arms around Yasha.  Yasha’s shoulders shake as she sobs. “I just wanted to stay with her forever.”

“You can stop,” Beau says. “If this is too much, Yasha, you can stop.  I didn’t mean to -”

“I can’t go back and find her,” Yasha sobs. “She’s gone forever.  I thought it would get easier to be here but it hasn’t, and there’s nowhere to go back to.  And I feel so _guilty_ that I _lived,_ Beau!”

“No,” Beau says firmly. “You don’t need to feel guilty for living.  You are worth it. You did everything you could to be happy, and then you did what you could to survive.  She would want that.”

“I loved her so much,” Yasha whispers.

“I can hear it in your voice,” Beau says.  She presses a kiss to the top of Yasha’s head.

Yasha snuffles and leans into Beau, going quiet.

“I’m sorry for bringing all of this up,” Beau says eventually, her words heavy in the darkened room.

“She is always on my mind, Beau,” Yasha says softly. “You had no way of knowing.”

She taps the box in her lap. “Have one of these with me, hmm?”

“Oh, no, they’re yours -”

 _“Galadzhayot_ are meant to be shared,” Yasha says in her gentle but firm tone that leaves no room for argument.  Her fingers carefully pluck one of the pastry jewels free from the box; she holds it out to Beau.

Her hand is shaking.  Beau gently covers Yasha’s fingers with her own, holding the little pastry between them for several long beats, and leans in and kisses Yasha’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Yasha’s eyes flick back and forth. “For what?”

“For all of it,” Beau answers, and she brings the _galadzhayot_ to her mouth.  Lime and chocolate explode across her tongue, and for years to come she’ll remember those as _sadness flavors_ without ever truly realizing why.

 

* * *

 

_happy ending_

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Beau says.

"I know,” Yasha answers simply.  There’s a smile on her face and she swings their intertwined hands together.

“We can just go get ice cream if you want,” Beau says.

Yasha’s smile just gets bigger. “We can get ice cream later, if _you_ want.”

“Yash.” Beau stops them in the middle of the sidewalk, just before the door of the shop they’re about to visit. “I just… I don’t want you to feel like you’re being forced into something.”

“Beauregard.  I asked you to bring me here,” Yasha says. “That’s not force, that’s a choice.”

“I just remember when I did this for the first time, and…”

Yasha leans in and kisses Beau. “Stop worrying, then.  I’ll buy you ice cream later. Now, take me in there.”

“As you wish,” Beau says, and still flustered by the kiss - will she ever stop being flustered?  She’s not sure, but it’s been eight months since they started dating and every single one still makes her stomach all butterflies - she opens the door to Wild Mother Tattoos.

 

“Wings,” the very large tattoo artist says thoughtfully. “Wings.  Hmm.”

He introduced himself as Caduceus, and he is one of the calmest people Beau’s ever met in her life.  His eyes are soft and gentle as he studies Yasha. He’s holding her hand, which Beau thinks is a little weird, but Yasha doesn’t seem to be complaining.

“What kind of wings?” Caduceus asks.

Yasha readjusts the sunglasses holding up her hair with her free hand. “Bony ones.”

“Bony ones,” Caduceus repeats softly.

“Skeletal wings,” Yasha says. “But at the bottom… they’re turning into feathers again.  And the feathers have flowers in them.”

“I see.” Caduceus very gently sets Yasha’s hand on her knee. “Thank you, Miss Yasha.  Why don’t I start drawing something here? Then you can approve the design.”

“Beau’s going to make sure it’s right,” Yasha tells him. “I can’t… I’m blind.”

“Oh!” Caduceus looks up at her. “Oh, yeah.  I didn’t… that’s all right.”

He stands up and moves away from them, picking up a pad of paper and a pencil, saying something softly to his shop assistant before leaning over the counter and beginning to sketch.

“Did he really not notice?” Yasha asks Beau. “Do I not… _look_ blind?”

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think Fjord and Jester noticed you were blind when you first came to us,” Beau answers.  She tucks a bit of Yasha’s hair behind her ear.

“And you?”

“I noticed,” Beau says. “But it didn’t change how I felt about you.”

“And how exactly was that?” Yasha asks, a small smile twitching her lips.

“That you were beautiful… and strong… and even though you were lost in an unfamiliar place you were still trying your best to figure everything out… and you smelled really good…”

“And you were right on all of it.”

“Yeah, except for the smell thing,” Beau says, letting out a very fake beleaguered sigh.

Yasha laughs.  She reaches out and finds Beau’s hand, meshing their fingers, and for awhile they just sit there in the relative stillness of the tattoo shop.  From the back comes the sound of a working tattoo gun; overhead a ceiling fan twirls lazily.  There’s some sort of soft music playing, something with flutes and harps and gentle chimes, and the whole place smells like lavender and fresh rain.  Beau watches Caduceus at the counter, sketching, completely dedicated to his craft.  He looks so perfectly at peace and in his element that it makes something like pure satisfaction twist around her heart.

“Yash?” she asks, her voice soft and a little hesitant.

“Hmm?”

“Are you… are you happy?”

Yasha turns nearly immediately towards Beau, her brow furrowed. “Of course I am.  Why would you think anything else?”

“I just… I want you to be happy.  And I’m kind of an asshole, so I don’t always know if that comes across.”

Yasha squeezes Beau’s hand, rubbing her thumb across the inside of Beau’s wrist; it’s one of Beau’s favorite things Yasha does. “You gave me a home -”

“Yeah, that part wasn’t my idea.”

“- and friends -”

“We kind of all came as a package deal.”

“- and you taught me things -”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure if you needed to know how to pick a lock, but I don’t know how to do a lot of shit, and how cool is it that you’re a blind lockpicker?”

“- and you kept me safe, and you called me _yours_ , and you made it okay for me to be the one who lived.  You might think you’re an asshole… but you gave me a second chance at life.” Yasha leans in until her forehead touches Beau’s cheek. “And that’s everything to me.”

Caduceus approaches, holding his sketch pad. “All right, Miss Yasha, I think I’ve got something here.”

He lays out the drawing on the coffee table in front of them and it takes Beau’s breath away.  He’s drawn a pair of skeletal wings, just as Yasha requested, opening out from a spine.  As the wings spread and arc, little feathers seem to be growing out of certain bones; the bottom of each wing has more feathers, and interspersed with the feathers are flowers.  Beau recognizes some of them: a sunflower, a pansy, a tulip, a lily-of-the-valley - but she can’t parse the others.

Stunned, she attempts to describe the drawing to Yasha.  Where she stutters and can’t figure out what to say, Caduceus takes over, his gentle voice overlapping Beau’s ramblings. “We’ll add some color to it, of course,” Caduceus adds. “And I have to make it into stencils that’ll fit on your back, but this is the first go-round.”

“What do you think, Beau?” Yasha asks.

“It’s perfect,” Beau whispers.

“Good,” Yasha says, “because you’re going to be the one who sees it the most.”

Beau’s still so focused on the tattoo art that it takes her a moment to realize what Yasha’s said, and then she goes bright red.  Caduceus chuckles.

Yasha grins and kisses Beau’s cheek. “If you say it’s good, it’s good.”

When Caduceus has made the stencils and Yasha’s lying with her back exposed on a table with one of the shop assistants placing each piece, Beau approaches the gentle tattoo artist. “Um, hi.  I wanted to ask you about a smaller tattoo.  For me.  Well, not technically for me.  For her.  But on me.”

Caduceus’ easy smile spreads across his face, as though he knows exactly what Beau means. “I think I can help you out.”

 

They get ice cream that night, but not at their favorite Baskin Robbins, since by the end of the first round of tattooing Yasha is exhausted, swaying as they walk back to Beau’s car.  Instead they eat from the same tub while sitting on the couch, half-watching a movie with Jester and Fjord.  Beau’s tried to figure out how to keep Yasha’s back from touching the couch, to protect the new tattoo, but Yasha claims it’s not bothering her.

Jester falls asleep halfway through the movie, like she usually does, and Fjord scoops her up and takes her to bed.  Yasha takes one more spoonful of ice cream, her spoon probing the container until she finds what might be the last bite.  She holds it up to Beau. “I got you something.”

Beau leans in and eats the proffered mouthful. “I got you something, too,” she says, her mouth still half full.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mmhmm.” Beau puts her spoon into the ice cream tub and takes Yasha’s spoon, putting the entire assembly on the coffee table.

“Am I going to like it?”

“I certainly hope so.” Beau takes Yasha’s hand in hers.  Almost as a reflex, Yasha’s thumb brushes the skin on Beau’s wrist.  Beau tries to hold herself steady; the pressure on the newly-tattooed area causes her to wince only slightly.

“Beau…” Yasha breathes, and her thumb goes across Beau’s wrist again. “What…?”

She brings her free hand up and runs her fingers across the bumps, reading the Braille Caduceus created on Beau’s skin not five hours before. “Oh, Beau,” Yasha murmurs.

“It’s for you,” Beau says simply; her throat constricts with love and joy and something like grief all at once. “I meant it the first time I said it and I mean it now.”

Yasha’s fingers move over it again, the five letters in a raised symphony of adoration: _Yours._

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


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